10/10/17; Lesson 05: Response to “Cultural Paradigms”

Cultural Paradigms

In his video “Cultural Paradigms”, professor Ivers speak about a great Mexican intellectual, Carlos Fuentes, who said, “We shall know each other, or we shall exterminate each other.” Professor Ivers continues to explain what Carlos Fuentes meant by that. By knowing each other he meant understanding each other’s paradigms - cultural differences. Professor Ivers also teaches us about simple paradigms, like clouds, car, rocks and complex paradigms, like hypocrisy, beauty, graciousness, pride, humility, laziness, being funny, polite, and loyal. Those paradigms differ from culture to culture. They describe how persons are, who they are. 

Reading more about this topic, I came across a sentence from Talmud, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” We are what our experiences made us to be. Therefore each individual’s knowledge and the way she/he sees the world is determined by her/his experience. That reminded me the story and poem about the six blind men and the elephant, which President Uchtdorf used to illustrate his talk, “What is the Truth?”

The story tells us that six men from Indostan went to see an elephant though all of them were blind. Each of them took hold of a part of it. One finds the leg and describes the elephant as being round like a tree, another feels the tail and describe elephant like a rope, another touches the tusk and describes the elephant as a spear.

Paradigms are mental and cultural models of reality that people use to interpret the social world around them. They can totally differ from culture to culture. People’s paradigms are influenced by their experiences.

In the end, the six men of Indostan “Disputed loud and long.” Carlos Fuentes was right, “We shall know each other, or we shall exterminate each other.”